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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26013499">World's End Dancehall</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/KeybladeCryptography/pseuds/KeybladeCryptography'>KeybladeCryptography</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, Fluff but in a sad kind of way, Game: Kingdom Hearts III, Kissing, Station of Awakening (Kingdom Hearts), Title shamelessly stolen from a Vocaloid song because I'm me</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 05:14:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,206</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26013499</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/KeybladeCryptography/pseuds/KeybladeCryptography</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In the minutes between Kairi being swept away by the demon tide and Sora awakening in the Final World, Kairi and Naminé meet in Kairi's heart station.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kairi/Naminé (Kingdom Hearts)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>World's End Dancehall</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A single moment stretches across seven hundred absent heartbeats. Time crawls like honey, like the golden rays seeping in through the cracks of the void. The universe offers Kairi threads of light so she can climb out of this darkness and sew reality back together with her calloused hands, even as it tries to tear her from her Other.</p>
<p>They have seven hundred absent heartbeats, seven hundred undrawn breaths together before that happens, before they once again stand on opposite shores of existence. (It’s not fair. Naminé is just as real as she is.) Kairi sprints across the stained glass to the shaded corner where Naminé stands, trying to escape the light a few seconds longer. It doesn’t work. The light only follows her, blooming beneath her feet and illuminating her heart. It makes Naminé look like a ghost, paper thin and translucent, the blue of her eyes and veins the sole splash of color in her monochromatic existence.</p>
<p>Naminé places her hand on Kairi’s and here, where they are just themselves with no bodies to cage them, Naminé is solid and warm and as real as Kairi always knew she was. Kairi nearly sobs, but this isn’t the time for that. She has too many tears to shed for this girl, who glows in the darkest corners of her consciousness, who lived only for others and never blamed anyone but herself, and Naminé is beginning to squint against the light. Time is speeding up now, the seconds falling like raindrops.</p>
<p>Naminé’s hand is gentle as it traces up Kairi’s arm, bitten nails scratching her still jugular, soft palm coming to cup Kairi’s bloodless cheek as she rubs strands of ruby hair between her fingers. Kairi leans into her touch, eyes fluttering shut. She’s supposed to be a dead girl anyway. There’s so much she could or should say but, and this is selfish of her, she doesn’t know where to begin. Naminé doesn’t fault her for that, she never has, but she isn’t entirely indulgent either because her thumbs trace over Kairi’s eyelids, coaxing them back open. She grasps Kairi’s chin with one hand and points with the other. </p>
<p>“Look,” she says, and Kairi notices the way the light seeps through Naminé’s splayed fingers, dividing them into black and white, as Naminé sweeps her hand through the emptiness. “Look,” she says again. “This is you. This is your heart.”</p>
<p>“Naminé,” Kairi starts. She still doesn’t know what to say.</p>
<p>Naminé shakes her head. “It’s okay. You and I make a whole.”</p>
<p>“You’re your own person,” Kairi says and she grasps Naminé’s thin wrists and looks her in her half-lidded eyes, indigo fixed on slivers of sapphire.</p>
<p>“I know, trust me. We’ll look together.”</p>
<p>“Okay. I trust you.” They take each other’s hands, just like they did when they first met outside of memory, in the Castle That Never Was. It hasn’t been long, but it feels like it, longer than Kairi would like, and her hands are so much rougher from grasping a keyblade while Naminé’s remain unblemished. Naminé continues to smile at her in that particular way of hers that makes her seem wise beyond the brief period of her existence, with a knowing upturn of the lips and a longing but never bitter glance to the side. Kairi lets Naminé guide her. It’s only fair; she is the one who controls their shared flesh, but hearts and the memories engraved within have always been her Other’s domain.</p>
<p>Kairi’s heart is tinted magenta, halfway between the pink she has learned to love despite childishly dismissing it as “too girly” in her younger years, and the purple of her youth, the purple of royalty, though she never wanted it. She examines a false reflection of herself in the center of the circle. This stained glass Kairi stands tall and unflinching, hands folded like butterfly wings over her heart and righteous fury churning in her eyes like stormy waters. She is haloed by the golden glow of magic that is not hers alone to bear or to claim and the real Kairi isn’t sure if it makes her greedy to be pleased by this. She wants Naminé to be free but it’s good to have her near and see proof of their connection. Naminé feels like home but Kairi has lost every home she’s ever had.</p>
<p>Naminé leads her up and to the left, where portraits of those dear to her rest above her head like a crown, how fitting for a princess. Riku’s hair is painted white instead of silver and non-existent wind lifts it off his gilded shirt as he smirks down at her left ear. Sora grins beside him, eyes impossibly blue. On the far right is Aqua. Kairi wishes she could remember why this woman is so important to her and Naminé stiffens beside her as that crosses her mind. (One more thing to talk about.) Beside her is Lea . . . Axel . . . but technically Lea because he lacks the teardrops under his eyes. His mane of red spikes has been replaced with a saturated strawberry pink.</p>
<p>In the center is stained glass Naminé, watching over stained glass Kairi from above, imprisoned in a circle of light that shines brighter than the others. She smiles and so does the real Naminé.</p>
<p>“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Naminé asks. “Your heart is beautiful.”</p>
<p>“Thanks. But Naminé . . . what about the other images?” She can see the edges of them and she starts to walk towards them but Naminé pulls her back, surprisingly strong. Thin fingers rest over Kairi’s face, blocking her vision.</p>
<p>“Don’t look,” Naminé says. “Not now, not yet.”</p>
<p>“I understand,” Kairi says. “Thank you. Thank you for protecting me.”</p>
<p>“We protect each other,” Naminé says. Kairi blinks when Naminé drops her hand and the void has become so much brighter than when she first arrived. It’s filling up with liquid amber light. They’ll drown in it soon and be pulled by different tides.</p>
<p>Kairi wraps her arms around Naminé, tight as she can without hurting, and clings to the warmth of the other girl. Naminé doesn’t fear her touch and hugs her back without hesitation and Kairi is honored. She wishes she could have started protecting Naminé sooner, but it’s no use dwelling on regrets. She’ll just have to make up for it now, for as long as Naminé will let her.</p>
<p>“Hey, Naminé.”</p>
<p>“Yeah?”</p>
<p>“You’re beautiful too.”</p>
<p>Naminé hums, low and content like a calm sea and Kairi doesn’t have to look at her to know that she’s smiling, but she tilts Naminé’s chin up because she wants to see anyway. She has a beautiful smile. Kairi presses her forehead to Naminé’s and on mutual impulse they close the distance between them with a firm press of lips before the light can fill it. Now they’ve exchanged good luck charms. No matter where they end up, they can find each other and protect each other again.</p>
<p>“I love you, Naminé” Kairi says. She braces her feet against the glass in vain.</p>
<p>“I love you too, Kairi,” Naminé says, before she’s whisked away.</p>
<p>The darkness failed to swallow Kairi but the light does, and her pulse begins to roar once again as it washes over her.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Namikai good. <br/>Uhh I like to use the end notes to ramble about my thought process and all that so I will say that this work has the title that it does because I specifically got this idea while listening to World's End Dancehall (despite this story and the story of the song not really having anything in common?). Also, I figured "well, I finally got around to writing Soroku, better write Namikai next" because I really enjoy Somebody/Nobody ships. And I'm glad I decided to do this because writing them was very fun!!! I think they have a very interesting and very underrated dynamic and I kinda hinted at it here but...has anyone written a fic yet about how Naminé is a witch of memory and Kairi is an amnesiac? If so PLEASE give me a link. Anyway, that's about that on that. If you want you can go follow me on <a href="https://twitter.com/CrepusculeChaos">Twitter</a> and chat me up about Namikai or anything else. Thanks for reading!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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